Dictionary:
ep·i·phe·nom·e·non (ĕp'ə-fĭ-nŏm'ə-nŏn')  |
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| Wordsmith Words: epiphenomenon |
(ep-i-fuh-NOM-uh-non, nuhn)
noun
1. A secondary phenomenon, one resulting from another.
2. An additional symptom appearing during the course of an illness, but not necessarily related to it.
Etymology
From Greek epi- (upon, after, over) + phainomenon (that which appears), from phainesthai (to appear)
| Word Overheard: epiphenomena |
New York Times columnist David Brooks uses the word epiphenomena as a singular in his discussion of free will and morality vs. neurological and environmental factors that turn a person into a mass murderer:
"But in the realm of the new science, the individual is like a cork bobbing on the currents of giant forces: evolution, brain chemistry, stress and upbringing. Human consciousness is merely an epiphenomena of the deep and controlling mental processes that lie within."
Link: The Morality Line - New York Times
Posted April 20, 2007.
See our Word Overheard blog to see interesting uses of strange words. 
| Philosophy Dictionary: epiphenomenon |
An incidental product of some process, that has no effects of its own. See epiphenomenalism.
| World of the Mind: epiphenomena |
| Obscure Words: epiphenomenon |
| Wikipedia: Epiphenomenon |
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Look up epiphenomenon in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
An epiphenomenon (plural - epiphenomena) is a secondary phenomenon that occurs alongside or in parallel to a primary phenomenon.
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In medicine, an epiphenomenon is a secondary symptom seemingly unrelated to the original disease or disorder. For example, having an increased risk of breast cancer as a result of taking an antibiotic is an epiphenomenon. It is not the antibiotic that is causing the increased risk, but the increased inflammation associated with bacterial infection.
In the more general use of the word a causal relationship between the phenomena is implied: the epiphenomenon is a consequence of the primary phenomenon; however, in medicine this relationship is typically not implied: an epiphenomenon may occur independently, and is merely called an epiphenomenon because it is not the primary phenomenon under study. (A side-effect is a specific kind of epiphenomenon that does occur as a direct consequence.)
An epiphenomenon can be an effect of primary phenomena, but cannot affect a primary phenomenon. In philosophy of mind, epiphenomenalism is the view that mental phenomena are epiphenomena in that they can be caused by physical phenomena, but cannot cause physical phenomena. In strong epiphenomenalism, epiphenomena that are mental phenomena can only be caused by physical phenomena, not by other mental phenomena. In weak epiphenomenalism, epiphenomena that are mental phenomena can be caused by both physical phenomena and other mental phenomena, but mental phenomena cannot be the cause of any physical phenomenon.
The physical world operates independently of the mental world in epiphenomenalism; the mental world exists as a derivative parallel world to the physical world, affected by the physical world (and by other epiphenomena in weak epiphenomenalism), but not able to have an effect on the physical world. Instrumentalist versions of epiphenomenalism allow some mental phenomena to cause physical phenomena, when those mental phenomena can be strictly analyzable as summaries of physical phenomena, preserving causality of the physical world to be strictly analyzable by other physical phenomena.[1]
According to epiphenomenalism, the free will to have an effect on the physical world is an illusion, as physical phenomena can only be caused by other physical phenomena. In weak epiphenomenalism, there is free will to cause some mental effects, allowing for mental discipline that is directed at other mental phenomena, or some new age effects on the mind.
Weak versions of behaviorism in psychology, which admit for the existence of mental phenomena, but not to their meaningful study as causes of any observable behavior in psychology, view mental phenomena as either epiphenomena, or linguistic summaries, as instrumentalist tools for examination of objectively observable physical behavior in others.
Epiphenomenalism was mentioned by Thomas Henry Huxley as early as 1874.[2]
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wordsmith Words. © 2009 Wordsmith.org. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Word Overheard. © 1999-2009 by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Philosophy Dictionary. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Copyright © 1994, 1996, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| World of the Mind. The Oxford Companion to the Mind. Second Edition. Copyright © Oxford University Press, 2004. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Obscure Words. © 2008 by Michael A. Fischer http://home.comcast.net/~wwftd. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Epiphenomenon". Read more |
